Leonards Department Store Subway

Fort Worth, Texas - 1960's

Back of postcard reads:

"World's first private subway - Through The Bluffs of Trinity River to beautiful sky-high Fort Worth, Texas. This is the first privately owned Department Store Subway in the world. Two of its seven Electric Cars are seen passing at the Entrance. Owned by Leonards Department Store, the vast river-level parking lot, subway and cars are free to the public, making the project unique in the annals of Downtown Business, Enterprise and Pleasure."

I wondered if this subway was still going today. Here's what I found on Wikipedia:

"The Tandy Center Subway operated in Fort Worth, Texas from 1963 to 2002. It ran a distance of 0.7 miles (1.1 km) and was, during the period of its operation, the only privately owned subway in the United States.

The subway was originally built by the Leonards Department Store in 1963, connecting the store to its large parking lots on the edge of downtown. Originally known as the Leonards M&O Subway, it consisted of one underground station beneath the store and three stations in the parking lots. The Tandy Corporation purchased the department store, its parking lots, and the subway in 1967. The corporation built its headquarters, the Tandy Center, on the site in 1974. Although it demolished the original store, Tandy retained the subway.

The small subway primarily served patrons visiting the mall at the base of the Tandy Center. However, the anchor tenant moved out in 1996 and the mall declined. The Tandy Center Subway ceased operation on August 30, 2002, thus ending the last privately-owned subway system in the United States."